But I Always Will
by Magic Crafter
Summary: AU; Clarice Starling is sent study under noted psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter as a student at the FBI Academy but upon her graduation, neither of them wants to part ways…
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings: **brief mentions of murder/blood; nothing graphic

**Author's Note: **Hannibal is an incredibly difficult character to write owing to the fact that I am not Thomas Harris. I've done the best I can. The timeline presented in the trilogy (er, quadrilogy now I guess?) doesn't really affect this fic. At least at this point, in this universe, there is no Will Graham and no Buffalo Bill. My Hannibal is also inevitably a hybrid of Harris' and Anthony Hopkins', and my Clarice likewise.

* * *

_Your hands can heal, your hands can bruise.  
I don't have a choice, but I still choose you._

Doctor Hannibal Lecter's life had not always been an enviable one. There had been periods when he had endured a considerable amount of hardship and suffering; some would say he had endured more than his fair share. Those days, however, were long behind him now. He may once have dwelled upon the wrongs and troubles of his past. No longer. The son of European nobility, Doctor Lecter did not live in Europe, and certainly not in a castle, now. He was nevertheless quite comfortable—and yes, he was to be envied; no doubt he was by many who knew him. The reasons were manifold.

Doctor Lecter was wealthy enough to live as he chose. Society knew him as a man of impeccable taste, held in high esteem by all. He was undeniably the most brilliant man his friends were likely ever to meet. To put it simply, Doctor Lecter was a genius. Yet he was a modest man, at least in that respect. True, he made a show of his wealth. He did have friends in high places—politicians, writers, fellow psychiatrists. He threw lavish dinner parties, and all who attended them agreed that they had enjoyed neither a better meal nor warmer hospitality anywhere. He wore the finest clothes—linen shirts, silk ties, tailored suits—and kept his handsome Baltimore townhouse impeccably organized and sparkling clean.

On top of it all, he had a thriving psychiatric practice. He had once been a medical doctor and had in fact worked in an emergency room. He was still licensed to practice medicine, but had chosen to make a change. So far, he had not regretted the choice. Doctor Lecter now aided those suffering from mental trauma rather than physical, or that was the intent. More often, patients simply wanted someone to talk to. Occasionally he did prescribe drugs for them, but the good Doctor Lecter was capable of diagnosing and (for all intents and purposes) _curing_ them without even lifting a finger.

By now, some five years into his practice, he was renowned. Countless students of psychology and even some professors had come to his Baltimore office. Everyone wanted an interview; everyone wanted some kind of insight into his mind. They rarely got it. For the most part, their questions were dull and uninspired; they bored him. Doctor Lecter had very little use for boredom.

That was something of special note about Doctor Lecter, however. Though he found that those with whom he was forced to interact often bored him, his behavior remained impeccable. He was never rude. Not one person could ever recall being offended by him. He had never said or done anything in poor taste at a dinner. As far as anyone could tell, he had never done or said anything in poor taste at all. If his practice had not been as renowned as it was, if he had not been so hospitable, so confident, so well-groomed, surely his sheer politeness would have surely earned him society's esteem.

One thing only marred Doctor Lecter's charmed life. A small matter, really; a handful, perhaps three or four, of his patients, had turned up missing.

He had been fully cooperative in the investigations and had made it clear—as clear as he could without invading the patients' privacy, which he, as a doctor, was obligated to protect—that a number of them were badly disturbed or at least depressed. It would be no surprise, he told the authorities with a shake of his head, if the patients in question had been beyond even _his_ help. His cooperation and sympathy, which bordered on genuine distress, were more than enough to clear him of suspicion.

Doctor Lecter had a good poker face.

Certainly no one other than the occasional detective even dreamed that Hannibal Lecter would be capable of any crime at all, much less one as heinous and undoubtedly messy as murder.

How little they knew. How unfortunately—for the justice system—unimaginative most people were! They could not see beyond Doctor Lecter's pleasant smile or his cultured dinner talk to what may be lurking behind it; what some would call a "monster." A fool might label him a sociopath, as though a mind such as his could be reduced to such terminology. They might—if they knew. And no one knew. As he was far cleverer than the general populous, he doubted that anyone ever would. There was really no reason for anyone _to_ know. He had no use for the ideas of "justice" or "closure" for his victims; and as long as they remained courteous and respectful, none of Doctor Lecter's acquaintances had anything to fear from him. They may have bored him sometimes, yes; but that did not mean he saw reason to kill them. In brief, as long as none of the people who associated with Hannibal Lecter offended him, they had no reason to see him as anything but a charming host and a gifted doctor.

Perhaps the thing that most puzzled these acquaintances was that Doctor Lecter had never shown interest in love or dating or anything of the kind. He had never been married, had no children. Of course, he could (and frequently did) appreciate a beautiful, well-dressed woman when he saw one. He had eyes. But no one had ever heard mention of his taking a woman to dinner, or even asking a woman to dinner, for that matter. Some surely wondered if he was, perhaps, a homosexual, though no one would dream of having the gall to actually ask him.

The truth of the matter was simple. He had not been particularly interested in any woman in particular until he received a visitor who changed everything.

It happened on a Wednesday. The week up to that point had been ordinary—boring, really. One of his regular patients stepped out, and Doctor Lecter stepped out with him. He was dressed casually: one of those fine linen shirts, white, tucked neatly into his black trousers; but no tie, no jacket. As he saw his patient out, he spotted a young woman in the lobby whom he had never seen before.

Would she excuse him, but was she waiting for Doctor Lecter? Yes, she was. Then it was his pleasure to introduce himself as the very same.

The young woman smiled, displaying straight white teeth. It was a nervous smile, a guarded smile; it did not reach her cornflower-blue eyes. He showed her into his office, already intrigued; invited her to sit. She did so, setting down her purse and crossing her legs, and he took the opportunity to observe her her more closely. She had hair that gleamed auburn in the light but in shadow was almost brown. Her clothes were modest, inexpensive, perhaps even cheap, but she had taste. A pretty girl, yes. More importantly, she was polite, if a little distant, and spoke with a slight accent. West Virginia, he pegged.

She introduced herself as Clarice Starling.

"I'm not really here as a patient, Dr. Lecter," she explained. "I'm here to…learn from you. I'm a student at the FBI academy."

Leaning over, Clarice Starling fished out identification—it was not a real FBI badge, of course, but it was confirmation. Doctor Lecter smiled. He liked that he had not needed to prompt her to do so. If his suspicions proved correct, a mere generation separated Miss Starling and poor white trash, but she still had manners. Very good.

"Yes, I believe I spoke to Jack about seeing one of his students," he replied. His smile suggested that the discussion had not gone exactly as Jack Crawford may have liked.

Doctor Lecter had given the FBI some paltry assistance before. Between that and his famed brilliance, Jack Crawford had called him rather grudgingly with a proposal: with a little education from him, a student could make a "significant" difference in Behavioral Science, the FBI's program designed to catch serial killers. Doctor Lecter had summoned all his self-control not to chuckle. The irony of it! But Crawford did not and could not know that. _It depends on just what kind of student you send to me, Jack, _he had said instead.

This was a kind of student he had not quite expected.

He rarely had anyone sitting opposite him in whom he took real interest. Clarice Starling was one of them. She was pretty, yes, but his interest went far beyond that. She could have come from no different background than himself—it was clear that she had little money (no surprise there; she was, after all, a student) and never had had any. Yet somehow, he saw a little of himself in young, reserved would-be Agent Starling. She was not as bright as Doctor Lecter himself, maybe, but then, very few were. A few minutes proved her intelligence to be more than satisfactory ("I graduated from the University of Virginia with honors, sir," she announced with just a hint of pride), and he found her far more perceptive than many of the dreadful students of psychology who had written or visited him in the past.

For those reasons, Doctor Lecter allowed her to stay. He would heed Crawford's request and would do his best to "educate" Clarice Starling: for a price. He would trade his time for some small bits of personal information about her. Surprising even himself, he found that he could not resist getting inside that auburn head.

By the time Clarice was set to graduate and become an FBI special agent, he had learned a good deal of interesting information about her: she had been quite fond of her father, but she had lost him years ago; and of course, the lambs. Clearly, that particular memory had been difficult for Clarice to face. He had seen the tears sparkle in her eyes as he had asked—and insisted that she be truthful, when she had lied the first time around. On the day he attended her graduation, however, something he would never normally have done, he could tell she was the better for it. Walking across the stage to accept her new badge, which glinted gold in the flash of a Polaroid camera, Clarice stood taller. Confidence shone in her eyes instead of tears, and her smile was dazzling, not half as shy as it had been on the first day he had met her. Doctor Lecter felt a curious sensation as he watched her, beaming on that stage.

He made an effort to deceive himself about that feeling, or at least to half-deceive himself, and did so willingly. Sitting amongst the friends and family of other graduates, he decided that what he felt was pride—perhaps some satisfaction in himself as well—and left it at that.

That self-deception worked well enough until he saw his protégé face-to-face. Clarice glowed with pride herself. Here was a girl who knew she looked good and who, more importantly, knew she had achieved something. She was still smiling in that fashion when she spotted Doctor Lecter in the crowd. As she moved towards him he returned her smile, knowing full well that his was, perhaps, a little more than merely courteous.

"Congratulations, Clarice," he told her. Crinkes appeared around his strange maroon eyes.

"I hadn't expected to see you here, Dr. Lecter," she replied and tilted her head slightly to one side. He could hear the pleasure in her voice, mingled with the surprise. It pleased him, and reminded him just how much he liked Clarice Starling.

He had known that for a while.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." The words sounded slightly off, but they earned him another of her winning smiles. She appeared to be genuinely touched. Doctor Lecter offered a hand to her. He had not quite expected the rush he felt when her small fingers close around his. Though his face did not change and he shook her hand firmly in congratulations, it was more than that between them—something she felt, too. He decided then that there was no more need for deception.

He offered to take Clarice to dinner, if she had no other plans, and joked that he could make her a better meal, but that he was willing to sacrifice quality for convenience—for her sake.

"I couldn't let you work in the kitchen while I waited to be served, Dr. Lecter," Clarice laughed. Those quiet, small-town manners were still there. Still, she accepted, and confessed that she had had no other plans. This, too, pleased him. It would surely have puzzled his friends in Baltimore. Hannibal Lecter, forever disinterested in women and particularly in romance, was suddenly romancing the most unlikely of women.

If he had not already known that Clarice owned few truly good clothes, he could have guessed. She had little money, and never had, but she did have good taste. He had seen her do the best with what she could on such a tight budget in the past, and knew also that she came from what was commonly called "white trash." He had spent three months or more observing her and picking her brain for such facts. He wanted to observe her again, in a different setting. He wanted to glimpse a different Clarice Starling than the one who had sat across from him in his lovely Baltimore office once or twice a week. He wanted to see her with a glass of fine wine in her hand.

He also wanted _her_ to observe a different Doctor Lecter than the one to whom she had grown accustomed. He wanted her to see him in a fine suit, suave as always but perhaps a little less _Hannibal Lecter, M.D., _respected psychiatrist, and more _Hannibal Lecter, esquire, _charming dinner host; cultured theatre-goer; member of the symphony board. He wanted to watch Clarice interact with _that_ man.

The dinner went splendidly. It was in a fine Italian restaurant that Doctor Lecter had become really enamored of Clarice's laughter and her fine white teeth, of the way they looked when she laughed at some witty observation that escaped his lips. Having already probed her darkest memories, he found he liked this Clarice just as much. While she was not a mooch by any means—no, Clarice Starling was a proud, strong girl if she was anything—but he was pleased the way a free meal and a glass of wine could loosen her up.

From that very first dinner, theirs was a different kind of courtship. A fortnight passed before Clarice stopped addressing him as "Dr. Lecter." She first called him Hannibal on the very night he kissed her for the first time.

He had taken her to the national ballet in Washington after she confessed to never having seen one before. She wore the same dress, simple and black, as on the night of her graduation dinner. He had donned a finely-tailored tuxedo. At the close of the ballet, they stepped together into the muggy Washington air and strolled beneath a blanket of winking stars. Clarice opened her mouth to say something and to his astonishment, he realized that suddenly, he did not like the way _Doctor Lecter_ sounded coming from her lips anymore. While Clarice had been a student, the situation had been markedly different. He had instructed her to call him that on the first day, after he had asked if he could call her simply "Clarice." Fitting, he said.

But things had since changed. She was no longer a student, but a special agent. He had a sudden desire to add her to the small number of people who called him simply _Hannibal_.

Clarice tilted her face up to look at him. "The ballet was lovely, Dr. Lecter," she murmured, and smiled, "as promised." Her eyes still glinted with the hint of unshed tears. After a pause, he took her aside. His hand pressed gently against the small of her back to guide her. The car was parked around the corner, and the street on which they now stood dark and empty. No need for self-consciousness; no one would disturb them.

The confusion he read in her face as she turned to look at him properly amused him a little. He touched her chin.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself."

Silence passed between them for a long moment interrupted by nothing but the hum of crickets. The shadow transformed her eyes into a deep blue, nearly black. A person could get lost in those eyes if they were not careful.

"I would like it very much, I think, if you called me 'Hannibal' from now on, Clarice."

He very much liked the idea of kissing her, and had entertained it since the beginning. As she struggled to find something to say, he decided that the time had come. He lowered his head and covered her lips with his own, cutting off the half-formed words just escaping them ("oh—alright, then…"). She tasted fresh and sweet there in the humid night air, and that evening opened a new chapter in their relationship.

It was doomed to be the last chapter—one with no sequel. Hannibal could not have known that then, but perhaps if he had come to his senses earlier, he would have spared them both a headache.

For six weeks, maybe a little fewer, he lost himself in their love affair; allowed himself to be lost. He did so in his own way: he did not become a new or different person and remained as courteous and hospitable and brilliant as ever. His practice did not suffer from his feelings for Clarice. There seemed to be no negative consequences at all. No, it was simply that with Clarice he felt able to be just Hannibal, the same man he had always been, but on a more intimate level. Of course, there were things she could not know, secrets that still must be kept, but these did not bother him. His was a peculiar hobby, but merely that: a hobby.

He still fully intended to peel away yet more of the layers that made up Clarice Starling, Federal Agent, as he had when she studied with him. Yet somehow, he also found himself caught up in the fundamentals of being in a relationship. Before Clarice had walked into his office, he had enjoyed a thriving, full social life, but throwing dinner parties and sitting on the orchestra board were quite different things from spending time with a lover.

When he went to Washington, where she now shared a small duplex with her former roommate, or when she came to Baltimore, they indulged in activities suggested by Hannibal: the ballet, an orchestra concerto, and once a tour of Baltimore at sunset.

Once and only once, Clarice managed to convince him to visit her in her half of the duplex. She fixed them a cheap but well-made dinner, which he found he enjoyed more than he had expected to, and put an old Humphrey Bogart film into the VCR. As on their first night out together, his dryly humorous observations elicited easy laughter from Clarice—until the film's romance truly got underway. Then silence fell between them. Gradually, while Bogie seduced his leading lady, Clarice pressed herself closer to Hannibal—her former mentor; her friend; her would-be lover—and finally raised her head, staring at him rather than tryst unfolding on the television screen.

"Would you mind kissing me, Hannibal?" she asked quietly.

He smiled wanly. It was a request, not a demand—one he could not refuse.

As if he would have wanted to.

Clarice Starling's alarm clock read 2:36 A.M. Her breathing was even and quiet in the darkness of the small bedroom. Hannibal did not disturb her when he rose from the bed.

He had realized a few moments before that he had made a mistake. The entirety of the past eight weeks had been a mistake. As he walked silently across the bedroom floor, collecting his discarded clothes, he thought of the vanished patients, the police, and the questions.

He turned his face towards Clarice where she lay peacefully in tangle of sheets and pillows where, just hours ago, they had made love to the blaring soundtrack of a 40s film. He had taken great pleasure in her pale, smooth skin. In bed, she had become a student again, more than willing to submit to him, this time physically. Hannibal had never liked his name better than in those moments when her voice, husky and more heavily accented than usual cried it out beneath him. For a while, he had been content as she drifted to sleep with her cheek pressed against his shoulder. If only he could have kept from thinking.

Yes, he would miss her, but he could not stay. He did not intend to be caught, now or in a year's time or in ten. It remained a possibility all the same, however. It was likewise possible that he would kill again.

The thought did not repulse him simply because Clarice Starling lay naked on the bed not ten feet away. It was his nature. If they had known, they would have called him a monster. Perhaps he was. He did not shy away from the idea, though he would prefer more intellectual terminology.

Still considering this, he buttoned his fine linen shirt which was somewhat wrinkled now, and shrugged on his sport coat. (He recalled Clarice's teasing words of greeting: "You always look like we're going to the fucking ballet, doctor.") No. He would very likely kill again, and it was best for Clarice if she did not find herself wrapped up in a long-term relationship with him. With a killer. A cannibal. A _monster_.

He easily found paper, and sat down at the same table where he and Clarice had so recently eaten dinner. He considered the blank sheet in the semidarkness before he began to write. Despite knowing he was doing the right thing, he found the writing itself poignant, almost difficult. It surprised him.

_My dear Clarice,  
You must allow me to apologize, and I'm afraid you must also take me on my word that this is for the best…_

He signed it "Hannibal Lecter, M.D." No more "Hannibal." No more relationship. No more Clarice Starling. She would reside in some sunny corner of his expansive memory palace. She would survive only as a memory—a memory like Europe; like medical school; like Mischa. _Mischa_. The name echoed in his mind as he thought it; he swallowed hard and willed it away. He had paid his debt to her long ago.

He folded the letter and wrote her name carefully in his elegant hand upon it. He laid it on her nightstand and stood for a moment by her bed. Memories. He at least had those. He knew very well that if he was caught, they would be all he would ever have.

Another man might have kissed her forehead or brushed her cheek with his hand before he left her. Hannibal did none of these things. He had left his mark on Clarice Starling and no touch could further cement it now. After another long pause, he turned and walked away. He locked Clarice's door with care behind him. As it closed, clicking softly, he whispered "Good-bye, Clarice," into the still, dark air. Perhaps Hannibal was a coward for not lingering till morning and explaining himself in person. He felt, however, that it was better this way. He suspected Clarice would be angry and hurt, but not devastated.

He had, after all, seen to it that he left her far stronger than she had come to him.

* * *

Hannibal passed the next six years in relative peace. No one had asked the ever-more esteemed Doctor Lecter what had happened to his pretty friend after he had returned to Baltimore alone, and had never again been spotted out and about (or at all) in her company. This suited him perfectly, and he made no effort to alleviate their curiosity. Clarice had neither called nor written in that time. Part of him was disappointed, but unsurprised. He had assured her in his letter that parting ways was for the best, particularly for her. Clarice was at perfect _liberty_ contact him. He had never planned to turn tail and hide somewhere—change his name, or even his phone number; he had far too much dignity. He had kept his word that should she find herself somehow in need of him (which he doubted) she knew where to find him.

And so far, she had not needed him. That, at least, pleased him. He knew that she was alive and well, for he had seen nothing about her in the papers. She had simply moved on, just as he had been sure she would. Clarice was a pro at moving on: from her father; from the screaming lambs; and now from him, Hannibal Lecter, M.D. It was one of the things he liked best about her.

On more than one occasion, Hannibal thought of her. He remembered her quite distinctly—her auburn hair and shining blue eyes and straight white teeth. Her West Virginia accent, just barely masked. Her distant politeness; her confident laugh. He thought of all of those things. In some ways, her memory had replaced Mischa's. He only dreamt of his sister now; he daydreamed of Clarice.

He missed her sometimes, but he killed twice more in those six years. As he washed the blood calmly from his hands, he knew he had done right by Clarice. She could, of course, take care of herself. All the same, he felt better knowing that he had protected her from this. If she had ever discovered his secret, she would surely have seen it as betrayal. She would have been confused. Conflicted. Perhaps even suspected.

Hannibal was not ashamed of what he had done. Yet he truly cared for Clarice Starling, and therefore he had happily spared her that suffering.

Thus everything in Hannibal's life carried on much in the same way as before Clarice Starling had walked into his office with the exception of his memories. His practice remained successful and popular; his dinner parties were always well-attended and well-reviewed. Even his wealth grew modestly. He was once more comfortable and content. The threat of boredom occasionally hovered over him. He thought that a trip might be in order. A trip to Europe or to Asia, or possibly both. Other than such half-made plans, life carried on as usual and without interruption.

He did not go into the office on Tuesdays. Often he relished the reprieve and the silence. He strove to make the most of solitude, though it sometimes bored him. Today he had buried himself deeply in a Dumas novel when the telephone rang in the living room.

Once—twice—a third time.

He set the book down in spite of the temptation to let the machine pick it up. There could be a problem at the office or with his patients. He preferred to deal with such things as soon and as concisely as possible.

He reached the phone just before the machine clicked on, lifted it off the receiver, and said pleasantly, "Good afternoon?"

The same voice that had so shaken his world six years previous now hissed through the phone cable, and he could not help the surprise in his tone as he murmured, "_Clarice_?"

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_Remember to leave a review!_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you sooo much for the really wonderful reviews. While I doubt I write the closest Hannibal to Harris' ever, or that he's perfect, I'm really touched! Also, I'm chugging my way through _Hannibal _(the book) and I'm almost done, so Hannibal and Clarice and the way I write them might suffer a few more alterations. On that note, my Clarice is an attempt at cobbling together Jodie Foster's and Harris'. (We don't speak of Julianne Moore in these parts.) This chapter might be a little wooden—apologies!

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Clarice Starling had grown accustomed to misfortune long ago. These days, she almost expected things to go wrong in her life. It wasn't that she was a pessimist. She had simply been conditioned to think that way. Between her career, her love life, and her personal life, it seemed nothing ever quite went her way.

Love life—what a laugh. The single memorable romance she had ever been a part of had ended abruptly six years ago. Since then, a handful of dinner dates and a smattering of phone calls were all she had to show for herself. Perhaps it was for the best.

The sad truth was that when Clarice had awoken in a sea of tangled sheets and found herself alone, and had then realized that the silent duplex was empty, she had cried. She had cried even before she noticed the paper folded beside the alarm clock, even before she had opened it and read it.

She had not read it immediately. Once she had finished crying, feeling like a fool for it, Clarice had risen from the bed and done menial tasks in order to distract herself. She made the bed, fluffed the pillows, and willed herself not to think of the man who should be lying in it beside her, or the fact that they had made love in it just hours ago. She pulled the sheets tight, almost too tight, and tucked them in. Then she got dressed, pulling on sweatpants and an oversized shirt a bit too roughly even as she tried not to think that she had no reason _to_ try anymore. Of course she did. She had plenty of reasons. She was young and attractive and charming, and she knew it. And someday soon, she would have an office in Behavioral Science, just as she'd always wanted.

An office _he_ had guaranteed her by playing Mr. Crawford's game.

Once the bed was made and Clarice was dressed—she would take a shower later, she decided; a long, hot, mind-numbing shower—she sat down at the kitchen table with the letter. She hated the way her hands trembled as she unfolded it.

Unsurprisingly, the letter was eloquent and gracious and appropriately apologetic. He made no excuses for himself, which satisfied her, even if his reasoning did not. He made a simple case that it would be better for them to go their separate ways, something he admitted to realizing far too late. He asked her forgiveness, though he assured her that he understood if she was not willing to forgive him at once. He thanked her for her kindness and her trust and her friendship (a word which had brought angry tears into her eyes). Finally, he strongly discouraged her from calling or even writing to him in the future.

_I believe that a "clean break" would be best for us both, _he had written. She still wondered, six years later, if he had expected her to call him in tears, begging him to reconsider. But no; he knew her better than that. Perhaps, then, he was nothing more than a coward. No. Clarice knew better herself.

He was not a coward, nor she a beggar. They would leave behind their eight weeks of ballets and fine dinners, and their single night as lovers. Even as she cried again, staining some of the letter with her tears, Clarice felt confident that she would move on, though she doubted she could ever properly forget him. He might haunt her the way the memory of her father did, but she could tolerate another ghost. She could ignore another ghost.

For the next six weeks, Clarice had made that her new reality. Occasionally she shared some Jack Daniels with Ardelia in their shared kitchen, but mostly, she threw herself into her work, determined to prove herself worthy with no one's help and absolutely no further _training._

When, six weeks after she had woken up in a cold bed, Clarice's period still hadn't arrived and she had begun feeling queasy in the morning, she knew that reality was not to be. She went to a doctor, who confirmed her suspicion with a smiling face, and had gone home and cried again. She considered an abortion, but could not bring herself to do it. Adoption, then—that would be for the best, really. What kind of life could she give a kid? Yet something held her back even from that sensible option. _Don't give her up, girl. _That was what her mind said to her. Silly, really, because she didn't even know whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

But in seven months or so it _would_ be a baby, her baby, and though she could see the office door with "Starling" written on it disappearing even as she made the decision, she _wanted _that baby for some crazy reason.

A thousand "should haves" ran through her mind over the next few months, of course. Despite her non-existent love life, she ought to have been taking the pill, or at least started taking it when she'd begun a real relationship with her former teacher. She had to have known, or at the very least hoped, that someday he would take her to bed, right? Then she shifted blame to him, which admittedly tasted sweeter. As brilliant as he was,_ he_ ought to have known that even one night was enough.

Clarice had nearly called him, but only once. A week or so after she had discovered that she was pregnant, she found herself standing in her small living room—the same one in which Clarice curled up against him watching Bogie and his buxom love interest—with her hand hovering over the phone.

She imagined of what she could say. _Hi, Hanni—_ No. He had not said so explicitly, but she couldn't call him "Hannibal" anymore. Well, then, _Hello, Dr. Lecter. I know you asked me not to contact you, but see, I'm having your kid._

None of it sounded right, and ultimately Clarice did not call. No doubt he would feel pressured into marriage or something of the kind, and Clarice would not force either of them to endure that. She convinced herself that there were plenty of men of his stature who never knew that they had children. No doubt they were happier for their ignorance. She did not need his support to raise this baby. And maybe there was something more to it than stubborn self-confidence; something selfish that she could not quite admit, even to herself.

She had never had something that was truly _hers, _not even Hannah. Her baby would be different. Barring some truly awful scenarios, no one could take her baby away.

The pregnancy was not a particularly happy one. It took a toll on Clarice's career from the start, and made her dreams of a place in Behavioral Science ever-more distant. If it hadn't been for Ardelia Mapp, the whole thing would surely have been quite miserable. Ardelia never asked—unlike nearly everyone else they knew—to know the identity of the "lucky man," nor shown any distaste when it became obvious that Clarice had no men in her life at all. Ardelia never judged her and never questioned her, except to make sure that she would someday be "Auntie Ardelia" to Clarice's baby. And at the end of those long months, Ardelia sat beside her in the hospital and held her hand through the pain.

Afterward, Clarice occasionally wondered if things might have been different had she told him. If everyone had known she was pregnant with Doctor Hannibal Lecter's child, would they have been happy for her or more disgusted still? Would her career have suffered a still-heavier blow since he himself had groomed her for it? Would he have been as supportive and as sure as Ardelia in the stuffy hospital room—would he have held her hand?

As soon as a nurse had placed the chubby, pink-faced baby into her arms, however, Clarice forgot her troubled pregnancy. True to her instincts, it was a little girl, eyes big and blue like her mother's, though Clarice had been told that all infants had blue eyes.

She named her Michelle. Ardelia did not inquire into the significance of the name, but if she had, Clarice would not have admitted—or perhaps even remembered—that the name made her think of Hannibal. She could not even recall why it should, but did it matter? The nurses hailed it as a beautiful name for a beautiful baby girl, and Clarice beamed around at them without any of her usual reserve. Her daughter _was_ beautiful, and not for a moment did Clarice regret her decision to keep her.

Not regretting the decision did not mean that life after Michelle Starling came into the world was easy, of course. Life had never been kind to Clarice in the past, and it did not choose to start now that she had a child.

Ardelia had helped her arrange a small nursery in the tiny spare bedroom on her side of the duplex. Small as it was, and though Clarice had struggled to provide niceties, it was a cheerful little room. She had selected a creamy yellow for the walls and sewn delicate lace curtains for the window. The night she came home with her tiny daughter and brought her into the nursery, she could not keep from thinking about Hannibal. Would he think the room _tasteful? _It was a foolish thought, really. After all, the good Doctor Lecter was not even aware that he had a daughter.

The less she reminded herself of this and the less she thought of him in general, the less guilty she felt for keeping that knowledge from him. If anyone ought to feel guilty for anything, she told herself, it was him for leaving her so abruptly and for such ridiculous reasons.

Clarice struggled to balance motherhood and her career on a daily basis. She still dreamed of an office in Behavioral Science, and dreamed of getting it on her own merits. It became increasingly difficult to continue fieldwork and not end up consigned to a desk job somewhere, however, much less to prove she had the mettle to hunt serial killers. She clung to her dream all the same, but as the months and years passed, and she had come no closer to attaining her imagined office, she thought more and more often of her mother.

She made ends meet for them, but just barely. She remembered helping her mother clean hotel rooms as _she_ endured the same struggle. In the end, her mother had failed to keep the family strong and whole. Had she ever resented her children—any of them, or all four—for making her work so hard? Had she resented them when she had realized her failure, realized that she would have to send at least one of them away?

She would never truly know, but Clarice doubted it. She did not resent Michelle, and knew, despite her hardships, that she would not lose her. She would certainly not have to send her away. She was well-educated and had a far better job than her mother ever had.

It was a good job, yes—but promotions passed her by. Each time that she and Ardelia gathered in their shared kitchen to make Michelle a birthday cake, that fact loomed larger. Clarice always shrugged it off and even managed to laugh a little, to point out that at least they had not transferred her to a desk job yet. Still, whenever she went on another dangerous drug raid, she remembered the big brick orphanage in which she had spent the last eight years of her childhood.

Hannibal had no knowledge of Michelle's existence at all, nor had Clarice told anyone—not even Ardelia—who had fathered her little girl.

If she, like her father, went on a raid and never came home—if she lay in a hospital bed for a month with only a machine keeping her alive—what would become of Michelle? No matter how many times she assured herself that a bullet would not take her down, it remained a possibility that someday, one might. Such were the thoughts that haunted Clarice Starling in the dark after long and trying days. She was all smiles and confidence around her daughter, forever fighting to be the best possible mother, but there were plenty of moments when she questioned her own strength and her ability as well.

So far, however, Clarice had escaped the raids unscathed, and with every passing day, Michelle proved more remarkable a child.

She was a small girl, smaller than most of the children with whom she atented preschool, and looked quite a lot like her mother. They shared the same auburn hair, delicate features and bright blue eyes.

In all other respects, Michelle seemed to Clarice to be her father's daughter. She was far more solemn than her schoolmates, more solemn than Clarice remembered her brothers and sister ever being. Once she learned to read, a book kept her company as frequently as dolls and teddy bears. She was never unkind or even particularly aloof, and loved Clarice—as well as "Auntie" Ardelia—quite a lot. She also had a handful of friends at school. Yet sometimes she was a little _too_ well-behaved for such a young child, Clarice thought. There were few tantrums, if any, in the Starling household, and usually a significant look or a sharp word was enough to discipline Michelle.

Because she knew how foolish it sounded, Clarice could barely admit—even to herself—that sometimes she felt Hannibal watching her through his daughter's eyes.

What would her life be like if she did not think of him on a daily basis? If she did not look at Michelle and wonder whether Hannibal would be proud of her, or even care? She might still dream about him—and though she doubted it, she thought that maybe he dreamed of her, too. Dreams, she could endure. Her guilt and her memories were more difficult to wrangle with. She was constantly reminding herself that_ he_ had fled from her. He had insisted a clean break was for the best.

That Michelle had no father was _his_ fault, not Clarice's.

Perhaps she knew instinctively that the topic was a painful one for her mother, because Michelle never asked about her father. In fact, she never showed a particular interest in the subject at all, nor did she make a fuss when people asked about her mommy and daddy.

Clarice felt sure that her daughter was curious, but she was unwilling to bring the matter up herself. And so, their lives went on—Clarice living with her guilt; Michelle, with her silent curiosity.

Vacations did not exist for mother and daughter. Birthdays and holidays were modest and spent at home. Ardelia added a little spice to their quiet lives, and Clarice made herself feel better remembering her own lackluster childhood—the childhood from which her best memory was her father sharing an orange with his children at the kitchen table, and the worst haunted by ghastly, inhuman screams. She hoped Michelle had better memories, and was sure she did not have any as gruesome as her own. That should have been enough to quiet her musings on how things might have been different for the little girl if she had a father, especially one who lived as well as Hannibal did.

She told herself again and again that there was no telling if Doctor Lecter would have even accepted Michelle, or if one day, he might have decided to disappear from her life as he had from Clarice's. Though Clarice knew perfectly well that the likes of him were few and far between, it would have been an old tale—another man afraid of commitment.

Since Michelle knew nothing about her father and could not possibly imagine his wealth or the comfort and security in which a man as wealthy as Hannibal lived, she could likewise know nothing of the kind of life that she might have had. Small comfort for her mother—but some comfort. Michelle had wealthier friends that she sometimes visited, girls with bigger houses, big backyards and big dogs and big, happy families. Yet she came home to the same little duplex, where she was welcomed by Mother in one half and Auntie in the other, and was content and quiet and well-behaved as ever.

This, too, offered Clarice a little comfort. How much harder life might have been if Michelle had been an obnoxious or disobedient child—if she'd been a wild thing, or inclined to self-pity or greed.

She supposed she had Hannibal to thank for that, and as ever, she wondered: would he like seeing himself in Michelle?

Would he have seen himself at all, or was Clarice inventing it, hoping that she saw him there?

And so Clarice watched her dreams of a Behavioral Science position fade more each day, while Michelle read a little more voraciously with each week after her fifth birthday that spring, knowing that in the fall she would finally be enrolled in a real school. Ardelia had them over for dinner at least once a week. Apart from Clarice's brushes with danger, apart from her guilt and the things she wondered alone in the dark, their lives were peaceful.

Clarice should have known that it would not last forever.

The early-summer Friday afternoon on which Clarice picked Michelle up after work was unremarkable—warm without yet being unbearably hot. Pleasant.

"Hey there, darling," she called as her daughter appeared amidst the throng of children. She knelt down and her arms. Michelle walked into them silently, unsmiling. The silence didn't surprise her, but Clarice could tell something wasn't right, but she decided to wait and let Michelle tell her if she wanted to.

The drive home was uncomfortable. Michelle said nothing the whole way, and as Clarice pulled the old Mustang into the duplex driveway, she wondered if she would have to wrangle the answer out of her.

At the front door, Clarice stopped and turned around, folding her arms. She looked down at her daughter's little auburn head and pursed her lips.

"Well, little miss, what's the matter with you? Did somebody call you a name?"

Michelle raised her head. She did not look particularly upset. Instead, she wore an expression that told her mother she was thinking about something—thinking as deeply as her five-year-old mind would allow. She stared up at Clarice with her father's eyes. The color was different, but they were Hannibal's all the same.

"Not me, Mother," she replied softly, "you."

Clarice frowned. Better to have this conversation inside, she decided, and unlocked the door.

* * *

With no pressing assignments, Clarice had not found it difficult to take a half-day the following Tuesday. She had needed all that time to think, to decide, to form the words in her head—to get rid of the guilt and the reluctance as best she could; to explain things to Michelle, wishing for once that she was not such a brilliant little thing, but a normal child who might not see through a lie.

In the end, of course, she could not lie, and she hadn't lied. Not exactly.

Their conversation from Friday evening had disturbed Clarice. It was inevitable that people would judge her, but for them to do so aloud in front of their children—in front of Michelle's friends—was intolerable

Michelle had suggested to her friend Diana that she should visit _Michelle's _house for a change. Mother and Auntie would be pleased to have a guest, she'd said. Besides, it made sense. Why didn't Clarice have one of her daughter's friends over—cook for them, entertain them—when other mothers did it so frequently? It was only fair to Diana's mother and father that the friendship should be a kind of shared burden, wasn't it?

Clarice could almost hear the conversation as though she had been there, hated it, and especially hated that her daughter had been forced to endure it.

_You know Mommy won't let me, Shelly, _said Diana.

In part, it seemed, Diana's mother was uncomfortable with the idea of a young, single mother sharing a house with another young woman, but it went beyond that, of course. The reasons were all absurd. One, Clarice had a gun, probably more than one. Two, the other woman somehow took offense from Clarice's unmarried status, as though she was the first person ever to raise a child alone. As though it had been her choice in the first place.

Diana's voice echoed in her mind again, telling her daughter: _And she said…she called your mommy a word I'm not supposed to say….'cause you don't have a daddy._

Clarice rarely saw Michelle cry, but tears shone in her eyes when she asked _why _she didn't have a daddy and why people called Clarice names because of it. It was perhaps the first time Clarice had heard her say the word _father_ out loud, or actually admit that she had no father to speak of. As she pulled Michelle close and held her—just as her mother had in that hotel room so many years ago—Clarice realized that she had been waiting for this question, waiting for this day. She just hadn't expected it to come like this, as the result of ugly words hurled at her by some snob of a housewife.

Even after all that time, Clarice didn't have the heart to tell Michelle that her father did not even know that she existed. In fact, she hadn't known exactly _what_ to say, except to assure the child that she did have a father and that—maybe—she could at last meet him.

_Maybe. _No promises. She had heeded Hannibal's advice this long, and now that she was considering getting back in touch, she knew that there was a chance that he would not agree to meet Michelle, even if he picked up the phone.

There was also a chance that he would be terribly angry with her when she told him that he had a five-year-old daughter.

Perhaps the worst possibility for Clarice, the one she was least willing to acknowledge, was that she might still harbor feelings for him. Six years after he had so abruptly ended their two-month affair, feeling anything but resentment or anger seemed pitiful. That she even thought about him so often was pitiful, really. For six weeks after he had vanished from her life, she had planned simply to forget him and be done with it.

Easy to say that Michelle was the reason she had not forgotten. Easy to say that looking at Michelle was why she thought—and dreamed—about him, even now.

The truth was, Clarice was unsure she would have been able to forget Hannibal Lecter even if she had not borne his child. She hadn't been able to forgotten the lambs on her cousin's farm, or the tail lights of her father's truck the last time he left home. Perhaps what she had once felt for him was as difficult to forget—or to get rid of. Pitiful, yes. Pitifully true.

After that awful, awkward conversation on a Friday evening, Clarice had given herself three days to collect herself. She cast dark looks at the phone every so often when Michelle was not in the room, knowing that soon she would have to call up an entirely different kind of bravery than that she used on assignments for the FBI. As she had six years before, she rehearsed mentally: _Dr. Lecter, I know it's been a while… _Or should she call him Hannibal? Everything she said in her mind sounded all wrong, just as it had the first time.

But this time, she had to do it—for Michelle's sake.

The important thing, she reminded herself on her uneasy drive home on Tuesday afternoon, was to be courteous. He liked that. He had liked that she had manners, knew how to be polite, from the first. She had to be polite again now, especially now.

If only the thought of actually dialing his number didn't twist her stomach into knots. If only the thought of hearing his voice for the first time in six years, for the first time since he had growled her name soft and low into her ear—_that's enough. _She was not calling to relive old memories with Dr. Lecter. She was calling to invite him to meet their daughter. She, Clarice, had nothing to do with it. And if, after he met Michelle, he wanted partial custody of her…well, best not to get ahead of herself. Either way, anything that came of this phone call would be strictly between father and daughter. She would make sure of it.

Before she even got out of the car, Clarice began to tremble. Her keys shook when she killed the Mustang's engine, then again as she unlocked the front door. She poured a glass of water in the kitchen and held it in her trembling hand for several long minutes as she stared at the phone.

Beside it, a note was written—his office phone number, unhanged for all these years. She now had no excuse to stall; she had made sure of it the night before.

Sinking onto the chair beside the phone, Clarice set down her water and picked up the receiver. Slow, reluctant, unsteady fingers punched the area code, followed by the seven digits that had once been so firmly fixed in her memory. She lifted it to her ear. It rang twice, three times, a foruth—

When she heard that smooth, strangely metallic voice, she started a bit until she realized that she'd reached a machine.

She did not leave a message.

There was a smaller number, messier, underneath the first. It ended in a question mark. Clarice was unsure whether she had remembered it correctly. She hesitated. In that instant, memories of Michelle's little body pressed into hers, the sorrow in her voice, the tears in her eyes, came back to her. _Mother, is it true? Don't I have a father? _Stroking her hair, murmuring, _Of course, darling. Of course you do._

Clarice dialed the number.

One ring, then two. Finally a third.

Hannibal Lecter spoke to her for the first time in six years, pleasant, calm: "Good afternoon?"

She was grateful that he could not see that her eyes were squeezed shut, or that her knuckles had gone white around the receiver.

"Hello, Dr. Lecter," she said steadily.

Even he could not mask his shock when he breathed her name into the phone, a question.

"Dr. Lecter," she said, "if you've got a minute, there's something we need to talk about."

* * *

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